Can Trump and Putin Head Off a New Nuclear Arms Race?

During the Helsinki summit in July 2018, when both Mr. Donald and Trump and Vladimir Putin met, there was no concrete breakthrough in any important issues from the one on one talk between them. There was no statement about reducing the disastrous nuclear war and restrain the qualitative nuclear race between the two countries and which will lead to quantitative nuclear arm race.

And US is scrapping the INS (Intermediate Range Nuclear Force Treaty) treaty is no worry for Russia either. In one hand US is composed to spend more than $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years on maintaining its nuclear delivery systems, on the other hand Russia is also spending on its nuclear arsenal upgrading.

In 1991 START ( Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was signed between the leaders of US and USSR. That was a bilateral treaty between the 2 countries on reducing strategic offensive arms. And again it was extended in 2010 as START 1 and signed between Barrack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev. This new START will expire in 2021.

In July 2018 , US secretary of state told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that there was no specific agreement reached regarding new START extension.

In recent new START data exchange shows United States have 652 deployed ICBMs and SLBMs while Russia has 527. If new START is not signed , both the sides will jump to increase their number of nuclear warheads deployed on these systems.

We have to wait and see whether there will new peace agreement or nuclear arms race between Trump and Putin.

image source - armscontrol.org